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On patriotism and the 2012 election

Kieran Conrad is a ConservativeHome College Columnist Winner.  He studied English at Middlebury College and Liberal Arts at St. John's College.

Patriotism (n): love for or devotion to one’s country.

What is patriotism? Since presidential hopefuls often talk about being patriotic, it is important to understand the meaning of the word. Let us carefully consider its definition in this instance: devotion means love, loyalty, or enthusiasm for a cause; a country is a political state; political means, or relates to, government; and government means the system by which a nation is conducted. Patriotism, therefore, is the love for, or devotion to, one’s system of government. Unfortunately, most people neither know our system of government nor understand the philosophy of liberty upon which it is founded: The United States is a democratic, constitutional republic, where the people elect representatives who will dutifully carry out their oaths to the laws that were created to protect the natural rights of the people.

However, today people believe that the proper role of government is paternalism, that it is government’s role to take care of the people. Citizens are reminded of this every four years when presidential elections occur. Candidates parrot the usual platitudes, the requisite partisan barbs, and the banal talking points. For “conservatives,” it is important to discuss lowering taxes, fixing healthcare and education, securing borders, strengthening national defense, and growing the economy. This is essentially what “liberals” say, too. Unfortunately, neither party wants to conserve the laws or philosophy upon which the federation was founded, nor do they truly believe in classical liberalism, which advocates the ideal of limited government and liberty of individuals, including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and markets. Instead, candidates regurgitate the well-worn rhetoric of what they would do and what they would create, rather than saying what they would repeal and what they would abolish. While this would not be politically expedient, it would be patriotic.

What is patriotism, then? In our case, whether Republican or Democrat, a patriot is one who refrains from using the power entrusted to them by the people to impose their beliefs on others by use of force. The presidential race is looming, and two options remain for the candidates: whether to grow the government or the economy. One is grown at the expense of the other. It would serve every candidate and citizen well to remember history, and how the growth of government, whether through the loss of individual rights and freedoms, the broadening of economic and social control, or the expanse of militaristic imperialism and devaluation of currency, always ends the same, and it can happen here, too. If patriotism and conservatism are important, then it is important to contrast each candidate’s voting record with the system of government and philosophy of liberty we wish to preserve, and not choose candidates based on whom we believe will best use the power of government to force others to live the way we believe to be proper. Instead, the core issue should be the rate by which the government is growing and the economy is dissolving. Therefore, perhaps the only candidate qualified to fix the problems is the only one who predicted them.

            Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.

- John Adams, to Abigail, 26 April 1777

Rep. Pete Olson: To infer that the Tea Party was the reason behind this rating change is beyond preposterous - it's the spending, Stupid

Congressman Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, represents Texas 22nd Congressional District

It was probably predictable, but still troubling that the Obama Administration blames the downgrade of our nation's credit rating on the Tea Party. When his party controlled both chambers of Congress, we heard the blame-Bush mantra. When conservatives regained the House following the President and Democratic-led Congress’ two-year spending spree, the blame quickly shifted to Republicans and the Tea Party. President Obama owns this economy, but none of the fault lies with him.

For years, and to be fair, under both parties’ rule, Washington increased spending beyond any reasonable limit. In 2009, with our economy crashing, a newly elected President Obama ignored this important wake-up call, and instead escalated the spending spree. And in order to preserve the status quo, President Obama and Senate Democrats insisted on tax hikes to feed their appetite.

As the Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, in 2008 spending was only 20.7 percent and debt held by the public was only 40.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), which is the calculation of everything our economy produces annually. In one year, under complete Democrat control, federal spending increased to 25 percent of GDP. The debt to GDP ratio also climbed to 53.5 percent in 2009, 62.2 percent in 2010, and is estimated to hit a record 72 percent this year.

This escalation is the reason for the downgrade to our nation's credit rating. To infer that the Tea Party was the reason behind this rating change is beyond preposterous.

Keep reading at the Fort Bend/Sugar Land Sun...

Exclusive excerpt from How the GOP Establishment is Co-Opting the Freshman Tea Party by Constance Dogood

Constance Dogood is a Tea Party leader who now works on staff for a newly elected Republican member of Congress. Below is an exclusive excerpt from her new book, How the GOP Establishment is Co-Opting the Freshman Tea Party. ConservativeHome asked her 2 questions about the thesis of her book:

CH: Your thesis is that the GOP establishment is coopting the Tea Party freshmen. But some would say the establishment never would have gone as far in the GOP budget in April, or even fought as hard as it did for the 2011 cuts (however dissatisfying the final number was), were it not for the Tea Party's influence. In other words, couldn't you say that the Tea Partiers in Congress, through their resistance to being coopted, are having a positive impact in Washington?

Dogood: The new Freshmen have definitely had an impact. They have managed to change the dialogue in Washington from "we must spend more" to "how much should we cut?" That is a big change in attitude. However, the Republican leadership is attempting to pacify the Tea Party and their elected representatives with symbolic votes that have little real meaning. For example, the vote to repeal Obamacare, while correct, had little real world impact. The same was true for the straight up or down vote on funding Planned Parenthood. These gestures are meant to placate angry voters. Meanwhile, they the Republican leaders are telling these new representatives "this is the best deal we can make." The Tea Party wants their representatives to say "no deal," but when you dig in like that, it makes the leadership look bad. They appear to not be in control of their unruly children, and they simply can't allow that.

CH: What do you now believe is the best way for the Tea Party to relate to the GOP? That is, should it be a separate party? Or, simply a grassroots movement that gets Tea Party candidates elected but then stays out of Washington? Or, should it beef up its Washington presence and seek to take on, or take over, the establishment?

Dogood: Personally, I think a third party is a losing proposition for conservatives. All it does is dilute the vote and get more liberals elected--like last week in New York. I just want to see our Republicans remember that they are the fiscal and social conservatives in the district, they should vote that way.

__________

Book Excerpt

I’ve been around the Tea Party since the beginning. I remember trying to get the local Republican Party to send out a notice to their membership of our first little gathering. They had no interest in us. They thought we were a bunch of kooks. Then about three thousand people showed up to protest the out-of-control spending that was going on in the spring of 2009 and suddenly my phone started ringing.
My friends in Tea Parties in other cities and towns tell me similar stories. In the beginning, the message from the Republican Establishment was “You are not us.” It was therefore a delicious irony when the Establishment noticed our big numbers, especially among the coveted fifty-and-over demographic (those old folks vote in droves), and we got to tell them in turn, “You are not us.”
 
Oh, they tried! They tried to co-opt the Tea Party. They tried to attach themselves to us by declaring that they, too, were fed up with government spending; they, too, thought Congress should abide by the words of the Constitution; and they, too, thought Washington was a deep cesspool of lying, ineffective hypocrites who are completely out of touch with their constituents. (All while enjoying “members only” dining rooms and taking “members only” elevators to catch “members only” trains to enter “members only” doors at the Capitol.)
 
The Establishment as a whole did not see the coming storm. They belittled the notion that a group of regular people, using communication tools favored by college students, could possibly push them out of their comfortable chairs. Of course, when RINOs like Charlie Crist in Florida and Sue Lowden in Nevada were toppled by Tea Party candidates, they started paying attention. The Establishment “leaders” hustled over to Fox News and talked about how fabulous the Tea Party was for America. They were more than happy to see the Tea Party go after the Democrats, but were very unhappy when we went after weak-kneed Republicans. Their basic attitude was clear: hunker down and wait until these people get tired and go home, even while they slavishly pandered to us.
 
The problem came when we didn’t go home.
 
So now that the Tea Party helped turn the tide and put Republicans back in charge, the leaders of the Republican Establishment would like for us to just skedaddle back to whatever we did before and let the “professionals” run the government....

This exclusive excerpt is taken from How the GOP Establishment Is Co-Opting the Freshman Tea Party Class, released this week by Broadside Books.